The present invention comprises a new and distinct cultivar of Pelargonium known by the varietal name Grace (Oglevee No. 1316, Bodger No. 6GM 129-7). The new variety was discovered in a selective breeding program to develop hybrid varieties for vegetative propagation by Mr. Douglas Holden and is a selection of a cross between the seed parent Salmon Floral Cascade and the pollen parent Pinto Red.
Salmon Floral Cascade is a commercially available vegetatively propagated cutting variety from Australia and which includes strains of Pelargonium frutetorum and Pelargonium peltatum. Pinto is a commercially available salmon single flower zonal (Pelargonium.times.hortorum) F.sub.1 hybrid seed geranium.
The new cultivar was discovered in August of 1986 at Bodger Seeds, Ltd. in El Monte, Calif., was first asexually reproduced by cuttings by Bodger Seeds, Ltd. at El Monte, Calif. and has been repeatedly asexually reproduced by cuttings at Oglevee Ltd. in Connellsville, Pa. It has been found to retain its distinctive characteristics through successive propagations.
The new cultivar has a different color (pale-pink) and larger flowers than the closest comparative variety, Salmon Floral Cascade.
The new cultivar, when grown in a glass greenhouse in Connellsville, Pa., using full light, 60.degree. F. night temperature, 68.degree. F. day temperature, 71.degree. F. vent temperature, and grown in a soilless media of constant fertilizer of 200-250 parts per million nitrogen and potassium, has a response time from a rooted cutting to a flowering plant in a four inch (10 cm) pot of six weeks.